The People Look Like Flowers At Last

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The People Look Like Flowers At Last Page 11

by Charles Bukowski

from the floor.

  we leave and

  go up a

  syphilitic staircase and back into

  the kitchen where

  a hog’s head is swimming

  in a very large white

  pot along with

  onions

  carrots

  potatoes,

  one small onion floating in an

  empty eye,

  and there’s his

  daughter

  2 and one half feet tall

  who remembers me

  from another

  day.

  she says some genuine funny things

  to us

  then walks away into an

  upstairs

  bedroom

  while her father and I sit around

  listening to old German

  marching songs

  and smoking

  Picayunes.

  the anarchists

  one time I began sitting around my place

  with some fellows with long dark beards

  who were very intense.

  many people come to see me but

  I usually roust them after a while.

  none of them ever bring women,

  they hide their women.

  I drink beer and listen, but not too

  attentively.

  but this particular crowd kept coming

  back. to me it was mostly beer and

  chatter. I noticed that they

  usually arrived in a caravan and had

  some central yet confused organization.

  I kept telling them that I didn’t give

  a fuck—either about America or about

  them. I just kept sitting there and each

  morning when I awakened they’d be gone—

  and that was best.

  finally they stopped coming and a

  few months later I wrote a short story

  about their political chatter—which,

  of course, trashed their idealism.

  the story was published somewhere and

  about a month later the leader walked

  in, sat down and split a six-pack.

  “I want to tell you something, Chinaski,

  we read that story. we held a council

  and took a vote on whether to murder

  you or not. you were spared, 6 to 5.”

  I laughed then, some years ago,

  but I no longer laugh. and even

  though I paid for most of the beer and

  even though

  some of you fellows pissed on the

  toilet lid, I now appreciate that

  extra vote.

  perfect white teeth

  I finally bought a color tv

  and the other night

  I hit on this movie

  and here’s a guy in

  Paris

  he has no money

  but he wears a very good suit

  and his necktie is knotted perfectly

  and he’s neither worried nor drunk

  but he’s in a café

  and all the beautiful women are

  in love with him

  and somehow he keeps paying his rent

  and walking up and down staircases

  in very clean shirts

  and he advises a few of the girls

  that while they can’t write poetry

  he can

  but he doesn’t really feel like it

  at the moment—

  he’s looking for Truth instead.

  meanwhile he has a perfect haircut

  no hangover

  no nervous tics around the eyes and perfect

  white teeth.

  I knew what would happen:

  he’d get the poetry, the women and

  the Truth.

  I popped off the tv set

  thinking, you dumb-ass son-of-a-bitch

  you deserve

  all

  three.

  4 blocks

  I drove my daughter to the school auditorium

  where her mother was to meet her

  at 5 p.m.

  I let her out of the car

  and she reached her head back through the window

  and kissed me

  as she always did.

  she was 8. I was 52.

  two fat women stood watching us.

  I waved goodbye to my daughter

  and as she walked to the doorway

  one of the fat women asked her,

  “wait a minute, who was that man?”

  and she answered, “that’s my daddy.”

  then one of the fatsos ran toward me:

  “wait a minute, can I get a ride, just 4

  blocks?”

  “I have a very dirty car,” I said.

  “I don’t mean to intrude,” she said,

  getting in,

  “just follow the road. it’s not far.”

  I followed the road.

  “Marina,” she said, “is a very nice girl, we

  all like Marina.”

  “yes,” I said, “she’s a very quiet and

  gentle girl.”

  “yes,” she answered, “yes, she is.”

  “I’m usually very quiet and gentle too,”

  I said.

  “well,” she replied, “I guess if you don’t

  praise yourself, nobody else will, hahaha!”

  “it’s quite windy today,” I said.

  “now,” she said, “go two blocks north, then turn

  right.”

  “all right,” I said, “I will.”

  “I hope,” she said, “that I’m not taking you too far

  out of your way? I hope that I’m not

  intruding?”

  “have you met Marina’s mother?” I asked.

  “oh yes,” she said, “she’s a lovely person, quite a

  lovely person.”

  “are you sure somebody else will?” I asked.

  “will what?” she asked.

  “praise you if you don’t praise yourself,” I

  replied.

  “well,” she said, “it’s 3 more blocks,

  then you take a right.”

  I ran up 3 blocks and took a

  right.

  “now,” she said, “see that truck with the gate hanging

  open?”

  “I see it,” I said.

  “you just park right there by that truck and I’ll

  get out.”

  I parked there and she got

  out.

  “I sure want to thank you,” she said,

  “and I hope I didn’t

  intrude.”

  “I’ll see you around,” I said,

  “take care of yourself.”

  I drove ahead and took another right

  onto a one-way street. the ocean was

  down there. there was not a sailboat

  in sight. vaguely I wondered about

  flying fish

  dismissed them as a myth

  spun my car around

  at the first opportunity

  and headed back

  to Los Angeles.

  you can’t force your way through the eye of the needle

  tearing up poems is my

  specialty.

  on a given night

  I will write between 5 and a

  dozen

  feeli
ng very good about

  all of

  them.

  the next day

  in the cold morning

  light

  I face them

  again:

  some have

  at best

  only a decent line or

  two.

  to rip and basket

  these failures

  is pure

  pleasure.

  there are some

  days

  when all of them

  go.

  the poem is hardly the

  core of our

  existence

  although

  there have been many

  poets

  who felt that

  it

  was.

  whatever they are,

  the gods are not

  dumb.

  they must laugh

  and wonder

  at our

  fever for

  fame.

  two kinds of hell

  I sat in the same bar for 7 years, from 6 a.m.

  until 2 a.m.

  sometimes I didn’t remember going back

  to my room.

  it was as if I was sitting on that bar stool

  continuously.

  I had no money but somehow the drinks kept

  coming.

  I wasn’t the bar clown but rather the

  bar fool.

  but often a fool can find an even greater

  fool to

  treat him to drinks.

  fortunately,

  it was a crowded

  place.

  but I had a point of view: I was waiting for

  something extraordinary to

  happen.

  but as the years drifted past

  nothing ever did unless I

  caused it:

  a broken bar mirror, a fight with a 7-foot

  giant, a dalliance with a lesbian,

  the ability to call a spade a spade and to

  settle arguments that I did not

  begin, and etc.

  one day I just upped and left.

  just like that.

  and as I began to drink alone I found my own company

  more than satisfactory.

  then, as if the gods were annoyed by my peace of

  mind, the ladies began knocking at my door.

  the gods were sending ladies to the

  fool!

  the ladies arrived one at a time and when one left

  the gods immediately—without allowing me any respite—would send

  another.

  and each seemed at first to be a fresh miracle, but then everything

  that at first seemed wonderful ended up

  badly.

  my fault, of course, yes, that’s what they usually told

  me.

  the gods just won’t let a man drink alone; they are jealous of

  simple pleasures; so they send a lady to

  knock upon your door.

  I remember all those cheap hotels; it was as if all the women

  were one; the first delicate rap on the wood and then,

  “oh, I heard you playing that lovely music on your radio. we’re

  neighbors. I’m down in 603 but I’ve never seen you in

  the hall before!”

  “come on in.”

  and there went your sanctity.

  you also remember the time when

  you walked up behind the 7-foot giant and knocked off his

  cowboy hat, yelling,

  “I’ll bet you’re too tall to suck your mother’s

  nipples!”

  and somebody in the bar saying, “hey, sir, forget it, he’s a mental

  case, he’s an asshole, he doesn’t know what he is

  saying!”

  “I know EXACTLY what I am saying and I’ll say it again,

  ‘I’ll bet you were too tall…’”

  he won the fight but you didn’t die, not the way you died inside after

  the gods arranged for all those ladies to come knocking at your door.

  the fistfight was more fair: he was slow, stupid and even a little

  bit frightened and the battle went well enough for you for quite a while,

  just like it did at first with those ladies the gods

  sent.

  the difference being, I decided, I at least had a chance with the

  ladies.

  my faithful Indian servant

  I reached over to turn on

  the lights. the lights were already

  on. I was in a bad way. “Hudnuck!”

  I bawled for my faithful Indian

  servant. “kiss my sack,” he answered.

  in the dim light

  I saw him on the couch with

  my wife. I stepped outside

  and blew my bugle.

  3 camels answered my call, and came

  running across the yard.

  “Hudnuck!” I bawled.

  “hold your horses, daddy-o,” he answered,

  “until I’m finished.”

  I blew my bugle. nothing happened.

  it was full of spit and

  tears.

  Hudnuck stepped out on the

  porch, pulling his zipper closed.

  “I want a raise,” he said,

  “I’m working for nothing.”

  “and I’m living for nothing, Hud:

  don’t you realize that

  I’m a broken man?”

  “don’t talk that way,” he said,

  “you’ve got a nice wife.”

  my wife stepped out on the

  porch. “what are you having

  for breakfast, darling?” she

  asked.

  “bacon and eggs,” I answered.

  “not you, you fool! she snapped.

  “t-bone and liver sausage,” said

  Hudnuck.

  “thank you, darling,” said my nice

  wife, going back into our

  nest.

  I blew my bugle. a crow answered.

  Hudnuck ripped the bugle

  from my hand. he wiped it

  across the front of my best

  shirt. (he was wearing

  it.)

  he played “Hearts and Flowers”

  on the damn thing. the tears

  welled up in my eyes.

  I decided to give him a

  raise. looking over, I saw

  him twisting my bugle into

  the shape of a cross as he

  whistled “It Ain’t Gonna

  Rain No More.”

  he had strong, sensitive, beautiful

  hands. I looked down at my own.

  at first I couldn’t find them. then quickly

  I took them out of my pockets

  and applauded

  him.

  a plausible finish

  there ought to be a place to go

  when you can’t sleep

  or you’re tired of getting drunk

  and the grass doesn’t work anymore,

  and I don’t mean to go

  to hash or cocaine,

  I mean a place to go to besides

  the death that’s waiting

  or to a love that doesn’t work

  anymore.
>
  there ought to be a place to go

  when you can’t sleep

  besides to a tv set or to a movie

  or to buy a newspaper

  or to read a novel.

  it’s not having that place to go to

  that creates the people now in madhouses

  and the suicides.

  I suppose what most people do

  when there isn’t any place to go

  is to go to some place or to something

  that hardly satisfies them,

  and this ritual tends to sandpaper them

  down to where they can somehow continue even

  without hope.

  those faces you see every day on the streets

  were not created

  entirely without

  hope: be kind to them:

  like you

  they have not

  escaped.

  another one of my critics

  I haven’t written a good poem

  in weeks. she’s 15

  and she walks in.

  “bastard, when are you going to get

  out of bed?”

  it’s ten minutes to noon

  so I get up and walk to the typewriter.

  she walks up in a Yankees baseball cap and

  stares at me.

  “DON’T BUG ME!” I scream. “I AM WRITING!”

  “imbecile,” she says and walks off.

  staring at that sheet of white paper

  I begin to think that some of my critics are

  right.

  she walks into the room again and looks at

  me.

  “blubbermouth,” she says, “hello, blubbermouth.”

  I ignore her.

  she reaches up and tugs at my beard.

  “hey, when you gonna take that mask off?

  I’m sick of that mask.”

  then she goes to the bathroom

  and with the door open she sits on the pot.

  she strains: “urrg, urrg, urrg…”

  I look over.

  “listen, you’re supposed to

  close the bathroom

  door when you do that.”

  “well, close it then, dummy,” she says.

  I get up and close it.

  I know a writer who spent 2 thousand dollars

  to have a cork-lined room built for

 

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